Programming the Cell Processor: For Games, Graphics, and Computation Review

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Programming the Cell Processor: For Games, Graphics, and Computation ReviewFirst and foremost, this is NOT a book for beginners. It's for experienced programmers who want to start working with the Cell processor. If that describes you, then you should buy this book immediately.
Every imaginable detail about the Cell is covered here. You'll learn how to write code, yes, but you'll also learn how that code works in terms of the Cell's physical architecture. This is crucial to understanding how best to harness the Cell's power. There are numerous diagrams and clear writing throughout, succinctly explaining what your code does and why it does it.
The book opens with a few chapters on setting up your work environment. This goes into great detail, walking you through installing Linux on a Windows PC or a Playstation 3 system, using gcc/make, acquiring and configuring the Cell SDK, debugging and simulating Cell applications, and setting up Eclipse and the Cell IDE. If you already know your way around Linux you'll be able to skip most of this, but if you're a Windows user (like me) this section will prove invaluable.
This is followed by in-depth technical discussions of the PPU (the Cell's primary processor) and the SPUs (the smaller, distributed processors at the heart of the Cell's power), how these communicate with each other, and how to optimize these communications. Sprinkled throughout are use cases for various functions in the Cell standard libraries; by the end of this section you should be able to program the Cell processor reasonably effectively.
While this book is focused on the Cell processor in general, it does recognize that perhaps the most ubiquitous application of the processor at present is the Playstation 3 system; to that end, the third and final section of the book is targeted at using the Cell processor for specifically game-related tasks: programming the frame buffer, using OpenGL, running the popular Ogre3D engine on the Cell, and using the COLLADA shared graphics file format and libraries. Depending on your focus, this section may or may not be useful, but either way its quality remains up to par with the rest of the book.
My only complaint is that the book's structure is not particularly conducive to use as a reference guide. That is, while it covers a significant portion of the Cell libraries and features, you can't just quickly look something up. The book's design seems to suggest a deep, initial read-through and then only occasional re-references thereafter. But perhaps supplementing it with the SDK's own documentation is sufficient. This is the only reason the book falls short of 5 stars for me, and of course your mileage may vary.
Overall, highly recommended for experienced programmers who want to start working with the Cell processor.Programming the Cell Processor: For Games, Graphics, and Computation OverviewMake the Most of IBM's Breakthrough Cell Processor in Any Gaming, Graphics, or Scientific ApplicationIBM's Cell processor delivers truly stunning computational power: enough to satisfy even the most demanding gamers and graphics developers. That's why Sony chose the Cell to drive its breakthrough PlayStation 3 and why Cell processors are at the heart of today's most powerful supercomputers. But many developers have struggled to create high-performance Cell applications: the practical, coherent information they need simply hasn't existed. Programming the Cell Processor solves that problem once and for all. Whether you're a game developer, graphics programmer, or engineer, Matthew Scarpino shows you how to create applications that leverage all the Cell's extraordinary power. Scarpino covers everything from the Cell's advanced architecture to its powerful tools and libraries, presenting realistic code examples that help you gain an increasingly deep and intuitive understanding of Cell development. Scarpino illuminates each of the Cell's most important technical innovations, introduces the commands needed to access its power, and walks you through the entire development process, including compiling, linking, debugging, and simulating code. He also offers start-to-finish case studies for three especially important Cell applications: games, graphics, and scientific computing. The Cell platform offers unprecedented potential, and this book will help you make the most of it. Mastering the Cell SDK, including the GCC-based buildchain, ppu-gdb/spu-gdb debuggers, IBM Full System Simulator, and Cell IDE

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Game Engine Architecture Review

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Game Engine Architecture ReviewJason Gregory's book offers a 10,000-foot view of game engine architecture, covering every system found in modern game engines, and detailing how those systems interact. It details the subjects at a level easily understood by anyone with a modest level of programming experience -- even non-programmers can gain a solid understanding of engine design from the book. This would make a great first book for anyone interested in programming game engines, either as a hobby or a future career.
However, it is important to clarify the limits of the book. I do not consider this to be a programming book, since it does not present the material at a sufficiently low-level that would permit an inexperienced programmer to implement a game engine from the ground-up. It describes how the algorithms work in enough detail that you can understand the idea, but does not present complete code examples that would demonstrate exactly how the algorithms would be implemented. There are occasional code snippets, and brief examples from engines like Ogre, Unreal, and idtech. But most of the content is entirely prose.
Experienced programmers/game devs have the coding background to implement many of the designs described in the book from the level at which they are presented. But neophyte programmers will not find enough details in this book to implement a full game engine on their own. However, no one book could do an adequate job of detailing how to implement an entire game engine: learning to program a game engine from the ground-up requires a very large stack of books (especially for physics and AI). So it would be unfair to fault this book for what it is not.
The value of the book is in providing clear, prose descriptions of the functional blocks found in a game engine, covering alternate ways different engines implement certain features, and cross-referencing how those blocks interact.
Another positive is that the book benefits from a mature writing style. Unlike the "Oh wow! Cool! Dude! Whew, math is hard! {BG}" style of writing inflicted upon many intro/for-teens books, this book can be read by adults (and most teens) without any undue eye-rolling due to bad writing. Which, sad to say, is why I feel inclined to remark on this point. Granted, this book was written for a course a SoCal, so a more mature writing still is required. I do wish more games-related books would follow this convention, instead of assuming the reader is mentally bereft or a pre-teen.Game Engine Architecture OverviewA 2009 Game Developer Magazine Front Line Award Finalist, this book covers both the theory and practice of game engine software development, bringing together complete coverage of a wide range of topics. The concepts and techniques described are the actual ones used by real game studios like Electronic Arts and Naughty Dog. The examples are often grounded in specific technologies, but the discussion extends way beyond any particular engine or API. The references and citations make it a great jumping off point for those who wish to dig deeper into any particular aspect of the game development process. Intended as the text for a college level series in game programming, this book can also be used by amateur software engineers, hobbyists, self-taught game programmers, and existing members of the game industry. Junior game engineers can use it to solidify their understanding of game technology and engine architecture. Even senior engineers who specialize in one particular field of game development can benefit from the bigger picture presented in these pages.

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Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling (Literacies) Review

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Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling (Literacies) ReviewAwesome, amazing perspectives on the ways we teach, learn, and use language. Play theory, multimodality, new media, social learning, and cultural considerations all come together in a very logical and meaningful way. Forget the highlighter when reading this book; it's all that good.Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling (Literacies) OverviewWhy do poor and minority students under-perform in school? Do computer games help or hinder learning? What can new research in psychology teach our educational policy-makers?In this major new book, Gee tackles the 'big ideas' about language, literacy and learning, putting forward an integrated theory that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and applying it to some of the very real problems that face educationalists today.Situated Language and Learning looks at the specialist academic varieties of language that are used in disciplines such as mathematics and the sciences. It argues that the language acquisition process needed to learn these forms of language is not given enough attention by schools, and that this places unfair demands on poor and minority students.The book compares this with learning as a process outside the classroom, applying this idea to computer and video games, and exploring the particular processes of learning which take place as a child interacts with others and technology to learn and play. In doing so, Gee examines what video games can teach us about how to improve learning in schools and engages with current debates on subjects such as 'communities of practice' and 'digital literacies'.Bringing together the latest research from a number of disciplines, Situated Language and Learning is a bold and controversial book by a leading figure in the field, and is essential reading for anyone interested in education and language.

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